to know little Katy Lennox,
the simple-hearted child, who blushed so prettily when first presented
to him, and blushed again when he praised her recitations, but who after
that forgot the difference in their social relations, laughing and
chatting as merrily in his presence as if she had been alone with Mrs.
Woodhull. This was the great charm to Wilford, Katy was so wholly
unconscious of himself or what he might think of her, that he could not
sit in judgment upon her, and he watched her eagerly as she sported, and
flashed, and sparkled, filling the room with sunshine, and putting to
rout the entire regiment of blues which had been for months harassing
the city-bred young man.

If there was any one thing in which Katy excelled, it was music, both
vocal and instrumental, a taste for which had been developed very early,
and fostered by Morris Grant, who had seen that his cousin had every
advantage which Silverton could afford. Great pains, too, had been given
to her style of playing while at Canandaigua, so that as a performer
upon the piano she had few rivals in the seminary, while her bird-like
voice filled every nook and corner of the room, where, on the night
after her visit to Mrs. Woodhull, a select exhibition was held, Katy
shining as the one bright star, and winning golden laurels for beauty,
grace and perfect self-possession from others than Wilford Cameron, who
was one of the invited auditors.

"Juno herself could not equal that," he thought, as Katy's fingers flew
over the keys, executing a brilliant and difficult piece without a
single mistake, and receiving the applause of the spectators easily,
naturally, as if it were an everyday occurrence. But when by request she
sang "Comin' through the Rye," Wilford's heart, if he had any before,
was wholly gone, and he dreamed of Katy Lennox that night, wondering
all the ensuing day how his haughty mother would receive that young
schoolgirl as her daughter, wife of the son whose bride she fancied must
be equal to the first lady in the land. And if Katy were not now equal
she could be made so, Wilford thought, wondering if Canandaigua were the
best place for her, and if she would consent to receive a year or two
years' tuition from him, provided her family were poor. He did not know
as they were, but he would ask, and he did, feeling a pang of regret
when he heard to some extent how Katy was circumstanced. Mrs. Woodhull
had never been to Silverton, and so she did not k